Minnesota AFL-CIO Pushes for Wisconsin “High-Speed” Rail

I’m currently in my home state of Minnesota, a place known to non-lefty residents as the People’s Republic of Minnesota, a place where the state’s Democratic party affiliate is still called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party (Democrats here are known as “DFLers”), and a place that is home to the predictable, bland, left-wing newspaper, the Minneapolis “Red” Star Tribune.

Unsurprisingly, the Star Tribune employs a host of authors and editors that sanctimoniously support virtually every government spending program, including really, really stupid ones such as low-density rail transit and non-high-speed “high-speed” rail projects backed by the Obama administration.

Also unsurprisingly, the “Labor” portion of the DFL is backing these not-so-high-speed rail projects, even when the projects are outside of Minnesota. The Green Bay Press Gazette reports that the Minnesota AFL-CIO is pushing Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker to switch his position on the proposed passenger rail corridor in his state — from oppose to in favor.

Last week, I authored an article published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explaining why Walker won’t be killing any high-speed rail projects in his state: because the proposed project is not high-speed rail by industrialized-world standards. The union is clearly not concerned by speeds or costs or any other facts; they just want their government-subsidized jobs, jobs, jobs!

On Sunday, The Cleveland Plain Dealer published an op-ed by Iain Murray and I on the speed angle. Like Wisconsin, voters in Ohio recently elected John Kasich to the governor’s office, who ran on an anti-rail platform.

H/T Ivan Osorio.

Image credit: cursedthing’s flickr photostream.